If, like me, you’re old enough to get the joke in today’s headline, congratulations on still being alive! (If you don’t remember it, here’s a reminder.) But, no, we didn’t forget Poland on today’s chocked-with-a-surprising-amount-of-not-awful-news BradCast!

Among our stories covered today….

• Who knew that holding a U.N. conference (COP28) on our climate catastrophe in a petrostate like the United Arab Emirates might end without an agreement — or with a bad one — from all 200 participating nations for the first time in the annual summit’s 28 year history? Well, it ain’t over until it’s over, with nations now officially in “overtime” at the Conference, which was otherwise set to end last night. Will they dare mention the phrase “fossil fuels” in whatever final statement they finally unanimously agree to make? Stay tuned!

• In what is being described as a “political earthquake”, after eight years under the heavy hand of a far-right anti-immigrant, anti-media, anti-woman authoritarian party’s Prime Minister and President, Poland — with a front-row seat over the past two years to Russia‘s autocratic invasion of Ukraine — elected a centrist, pro-EU Prime Minister on Monday! That is good news on a whole bunch of fronts. It became official today when Donald Tusk received a vote of confidence from parliament after a brief delay when a right-wing lawmaker used a fire-extinguisher to douse candles in a Hanukkah menorah in parliament. “This is a wonderful day,” said Tusk to the Polish people on Monday night. “Not for me, but for all those who have deeply believed over these years that things will get even better, that we will chase away the darkness, that we will chase away evil. From tomorrow, we will be able to right the wrongs so that everyone, without exception, can feel at home.” The news is a welcome counter-point to the recent rise of right-wing authoritarianism in nations from Argentina to The Netherlands. And, hopefully, its a good omen for 2024 in the U.S.

• On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had to fly all the way to the U.S. on Tuesday to, essentially, beg far-right Congressional Republicans — who have apparently lost the plot of democracy — to continue supporting Ukraine’s efforts to hold off the imperialist invasion of his country by fascist Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

• Speaking of Congress and democracy, very good news out of New York‘s high court today, which ordered a new U.S. House map for next year’s 2024 Congressional elections, after the map used in 2022 resulted in a bunch of seats flipping from D to R in newly drawn districts after state Dems kinda screwed up the whole process. We explain.

• And in more potentially good news for 2024, inflation continues to fall faster than expected, as the U.S. economy continues to show surprising resilience and little sign of the recession that many had feared when Donald Trump’s Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, began raising interest rates last year to combat inflation. Inflation is almost back to normal at 3.1% over last year; gasoline is down 11% over the past two months; employers are still hiring and unemployment remains at a near record-low rate of 3.7%. But, some prices are still high at grocery stores, as is rent and the cost of a home mortgage. Economists are watching Powell closely for a read as to when the Fed may deign to finally lower interest rates next year.

• No sooner had we gotten off air yesterday, than the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would consider an expedited petition filed on Monday by Special Counsel Jack Smith to hear Donald Trump‘s appeal on Presidential Immunity in his January 6 federal indictment. It doesn’t necessarily mean SCOTUS will hear the full case. But it means they will consider doing so. Smith had filed the petition for cert just hours earlier, leapfrogging the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in hopes of keeping next year’s scheduled March 4th trial date for Trump on track. All of which, at least for now, is encouraging news to suggest that SCOTUS may both do the right thing and do so with the alacrity that would allow the American people a verdict in the case against Trump in advance of next year’s Presidential election.

• The defamation damages trial against dirtbag former NYC Mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani — in which he’s already been found guilty of defamation — continued into its second day on Tuesday. But not before his attorney admitted in Court on Monday (as the federal judge has already found), that Rudy’s horrendous claims about two Georgia election workers in 2020 committing fraud for Joe Biden were false. And not before Giuliani then stepped out of the courtroom on Monday and repeated the same baseless claims yet again on the courthouse stairs. Today, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell scolded both Rudy and his attorney, noting that Giuliani’s remarks on Monday night “could support another defamation claim” by mother and daughter plaintiffs Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The pair are currently seeking damages in the amount of $15.5 to $43 million in their civil lawsuit. And they will deserve every penny they receive.

• Speaking of dirtbags, following the news last week that Wisconsin‘s 10 fake Trump electors had settled a civil lawsuit against them, the state’s U.S. Senator Ron Johnson — already on record as having encouraged state lawmakers to steal the Badger State’s 2020 election for Trump — described the settlement as a “travesty of justice.” He insisted that Democrats had done the very same thing “repeatedly” and “in multiple states” in the past. Nonetheless, he couldn’t name any state where Democrats had secretly created false slates of electors in hopes of stealing an election when pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. (If Johnson was referring to what happened in Hawaii in 1960, he is wrong about that as well.)

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, with both the good and bad, so far, out of the COP28 Climate Conference in Dubai, and some very good news indeed from President Biden regarding the nation’s largest ever investment in high speed rail and U.S. passenger rail service.

The BradCast with Brad Friedman 12/12/2023

You Forgot Poland!: ‘BradCast’ 12/12/2023  |  COP28 in 'overtime'; Democracy rises in Poland; New U.S. House maps for NY; More good economic news; Trump at SCOTUS; Rudy defames amid defamation trial; Johnson lies about WI's fake electors...   · · · · ·   You Forgot Poland!: ‘BradCast’ 12/12/2023  |  COP28 in 'overtime'; Democracy rises in Poland; New U.S. House maps for NY; More good economic news; Trump at SCOTUS; Rudy defames amid defamation trial; Johnson lies about WI's fake electors...

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